Delinquencies on construction loans held by banks increased for the second consecutive quarter, and are now tied for the highest level seen since the recession, Trepp reported.

The delinquency rate remains relatively low for construction loans at 0.6%. That compares to delinquencies of 0.04% for income-producing commercial real estate and 0.01% for multifamily, while overall delinquencies stand at 0.2%, said Trepp.

However, the analytics firm emphasized that the latest quarterly data—from the fourth quarter of 2019—doesn’t reflect the impact of COVID-19, which isn’t expected to have a material influence on loan performance until Q2 of this year.

“The low delinquency rate seen across this set of bank loans reflects the state of the market prior to the COVID-19 outbreak,” according to VP Russell Hughes, who manages Trepp’s data consortia initiatives. “We will be tracking how the economic effects of the pandemic impact the delinquency rate in the future.”

The Trepp bank loan performance benchmark report is derived from the Trepp Anonymized Loan Level Repository, and provides risk rating, delinquency rates and other performance metrics on a portfolio of more than 34,500 bank loans with a current outstanding balance of $172 billion.